That all sounds awesome aside from the last sentence - I’m keen to know the rationale for their opposition.
I can only imagine that there’s a concern that the Portland Street Response may be putting themselves at undue risk with the most volatile of clients… but even I can feel my back twitch from the amount of reaching I’m doing there!
I think you’re right but for the wrong reasons - I think it would be an absolute net positive effect but I still think the lines should be drawn between policing and social work and healthcare issues. Fair warning, I’m from the UK which has it’s own issues with policing but nothing on the clusterfuck scale as it is across the pond.
Sending police officers (and ambulance staff, maybe even coastguard - in the civilian sense, not the American branch of the military) to do two or four weeks of social work attachment would work wonders. It would provide a great insight into the difficulties and behaviours of those in social or mental crisis, and give more soft tools to recognise and resolve issues.
That said, it shouldnt be policing agencies going to social work or mental health calls in the first place. People in crisis are often acting irrationally or unpredictably due to the very nature of the crisis they’re experiencing, and when a lethal weapon is an optional available to the responders, then you’ll have a less than spectacular outcome on occasions.
Ideally, additional funding should be centered around social work and mental health teams - perhaps having first responders for both so you don’t have cops wading in with the best of intentions, and confronting something they aren’t the best people to be dealing with - where a mental health ambulance or a social work rapid response team would bring a welfare call to a far safer conclusion.
I absolutely get that my view is very UK-skewed but if you keep putting armed cops into situations like that - then the public will get hurt, cops will get hurt, the taxpayer coughs up a fortune in legal costs … all of which could fund better ways to respond to the homeless, the stressed, the neurodiverse, and other non-criminal issues that people phone in with good intentions.
I suspect there may be additional vulnerabilities there that contributed to his distress.
In that instance though, as soon as a firearm gets whipped out, no police officer, mental health worker, or other support structure would change the outcome.
What a shame for everyone involved.
I’m in the same boat. My other half has been stuck with me for nearly twenty years now and bigger and better things have come up that have needed the money spent on it.
The bit of paper will come in handy if one of us kicks the bucket though, or even when it comes to claiming certain tax allowances in the UK. I just want to make sure they’re sorted financially when I end up brown bread, and proving their connection to me is going to me one of the last things on the list in the immediate aftermath of a bereavement.
I’m not arsed one way or another about it though.
yeah alright cheers bruv, how was yours?
I’ve been threatening to do this for years. Irregular hours have meant that I’ve skipped this idea, and rugby. I guess I’d love to go just for the workout and for the extra circle of friends, but I don’t want to be wasting folks time when I’m not going to be able to make games consistently.
I enjoyed playing roller hockey when I was younger and I know getting the skates back on after thirty years will be a challenge, maybe I’ll give this a go again.
I agree with you, however as always, context is key.
I’m speaking from the other end of the usual timeline - I wrapped education up after getting fucked about at my further education college. I’d lost interest and continuing my studies in my youth would likely have resulted in extra debt, burnout, or failure (or even the triple crown if I’d stuck it out). I went into employment instead.
Twenty years later, I’m back in part time study and I’m in year five of a six year degree programme - literally taking twice as long to do a normal BSc pathway because of the part time element.
I’m doing it for funsies. I felt like I had unfinished business with it, I really wanted to continue the study at least through undergraduate level, but I’ve done it for my own reasons rather than for a job or extra coin. The skills I’ve learned along the way - critical thinking; how to credit people for their work; and the general study material have been more than enough to consider this decision to be a success.
That said, I know I’m in an incredibly privileged position to do what I’m doing, and I’m quite sure that a lot of folk couldn’t spunk £160-180 per month for six years, particularly when wages are stagnating and cost of living keeps rising. I’ve gone in to this wanting to learn about the field I’m studying, and not to hang my hopes of a job on that bit of paper the hopefully comes at the end of it. If nothing else, this course has shown me how little I know about the wider field and the world in general; and also how easy it is to game most systems including educational establishments for the most part - so in terms of employment, I can see how postnominals or a fancy certificate mean fuck all to employers.
I look at it as another formative stage in life - I’ve learned, I’ve developed, I’m a few grand lighter, but it opens new exciting doors to be able to get closer to the cutting edge in my current study field, or even pull the handbrake up and turn the wheel at the same time on my study career and pick another topic to read with more confidence.
I think the key is to at least enjoy what you’re doing in general. If you hate your field or you’re doing it because your job’s pinned to it, then you’re going to have A Real Bad Time™️ and I can see why people would be bitter about it when things go sideways after all that work.
Mouse look was revolutionary.
I tried to play Half-Life Uplink with the right directions of looking mapped to 789, 4 and 6, 123. It wasn’t very intuitive.
That said, I played Quake 1 with lookup and lookdown bound to PgUp and PgDown, and Quake II on PlayStation with lookup and lookdown mapped to L1 and R1.
Looking back, that was a wild few years.
Out of curiosity, were you on the hook for the entire cost? As it, was any of it covered by insurance?
It doesn’t sound like much fun at all.
Even then, Trump isn’t the root problem.
I agree with everything you’ve said (for whatever that’s worth, being from outside the US) - but the primary issue is the 30%+ of folk who are voting for this arsehole, along with the 30%+ of folk who didn’t care enough to vote against it.
Following that logic, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Trump, Hitler, Musk, Orban, Putin or whatever going for the post - it doesn’t even matter whether they’re constitutionally permitted to stand for office, if there’s an overwhelming number of folk who don’t give a fuck and vote that way anyway, then there’s your bigger problem.
My BlackBerry Passport turned itself into a nice spongy death pillow. It didn’t seem to like being left on a warm day outside next to the speaker for an hour or so.
Phoned the insurance firm, who operated a policy where they’d try and repair it, or offer you a new or refurb’d model of the same phone.
Thing was, because the Passport was not produced in huge numbers and it couldn’t be fixed, I got a nice cheque for six hundred quid which more than covered a new Unihertz Titan.
thank u battery bomb gods
DFBs early stuff was much better than Skibidi Toilet.
But yes, every country will have differing approaches to education and it’s priority in the grand scheme of things. My personal opinion is that education and healthcare should be top any country’s list but I’m not naive enough to think there’s not… “competing pressures” on where to spend taxpayer money.
I think it’s easy to get caught up in the negative news that naturally floats to the top of most algorithms these days.
Primary and secondary schools are doing a lot more than they used to, and with an ever decreasing budget too. The quality of teaching is largely better, and the teaching career is becoming more “professionalised” by the year, for better or for worse - the constant wave of bureaucracy surround evidencing decision making and CPD is driving loads of great teachers away from the profession.
I’ve gone back to higher education and I’ve been surprised at the sheer range of support networks and services available to those who need them. I’m lucky enough to largely have my shit together (even if it is held together with sellotape, chewing gum, and prayers) - but there’s not many places quite like this establishment where I could turn and access such a range of guidance and support nowadays. As usual though, most of these ideas and developments have been written in blood after failings have been exposed in the past, which is a huge shame. Even socio-economic barriers are starting to be broken down - I’m getting spanked monthly for tuition fees but I’ve applied for grants that I’m ethically not entitled to and I’ve been given them no questions asked.
That said, the problems are outside the school these days. Mobile phones and social media are the big driver of this - in my day (and I’m decidedly middle age - not young, not old) if you were having a hard time; getting grief off bullies; or made an embarrassing fuckup… that was it, it stopped at 3:15pm and it would have been old news by 9am. Now, shit follows you home and shit sticks when digital media exists of it. It’s fucking horrendous from that aspect and I think now the genie is out of the bottle, only education and common sense can mitigate it - both of which are bottom of your interest list when you’re in your teens!
In short, school experiences seem to be trending upwards, but outside of school is a lot more hairy.
As always, YMMV and I’m in the UK.
Now that’s something I’d have expected to see a wave of now, and a comm called jesuswithajob or something. lols.
My academic institution took the more sensible approach of just making the exams open book, and adjusting the questions to demonstrate understanding and application of the concepts, rather than just recite stuff.
In the late 90s, there were some monitors in our school library that had some serious grounding problems. You could literally touch the screen with one finger, touch your victim with the other hand, and have your pal repeatedly turn the monitor off and on rapidly at the physical spring-loaded switch - and at some point, they’d get an uncomfortable-but-not-painful shock.
Highly entertaining, guaranteed a bollocking, and after that it was back to the degaussing CHUNNNNNNNGUNGUNGUNG sound. Satisfying as fuck.
Tinnyday. Comes before or after Wednesday depending on daylight savings, encourages a beer or a wine (or whatever beverage of your choosing) to relax. Business hours the following day do not start until 10am.
Delivery fees from online retailers are ineligible to charge delivery fees, local food orders must include a free canned beverage, people working in entertainment venues get double time.
The HAMBOTVER of the 2000s!
My first thought was: “I must try this”. I need to read my house insurance policy first.
Curiosity got the better of me when I waved an alcohol wipe over an open flame. There’s still a dark mark on the office carpet tile from where I had to stamp it out.
Yeah 100% on board with that. I think it’s a great thing.
I’m just struggling to get my head around the police department’s objection when Seattle-area cops generally generate more chill news than fuckups (not that good interactions make the news in any departmental arew really); and the introduction of this social work unit would likely take a huge chunk out of their workload (again an assumption based on UK style policing, apologies).
All very bizarre but yes, a huge step in the right direction. Love it.